The present invention relates to a computer network and more particularly to a mechanism for managing cache contents which have heretofore been executed by a Least Recent Used (LRU) system.
A data transfer amount has heretofore been reduced by memorizing copies (hereinafter referred to as caches) of transfer data in each place of a network so as to execute the retrieval processes following the second retrieval process by using caches in proportion to an increase in the data transfer amount over a network. This cache content management has heretofore used the LRU algorithm.
When the cache content is managed by the LRU algorithm, data that cannot be stored fully in a high-speed/small capacity storage is stored in a low-speed/large capacity storage such as a disk. Further, data that cannot be stored in such a low-speed/large capacity storage, longest non-used data is discarded. That is, the latest accessed data is stored in the high-speed storage, then new data is stored in the low-speed storage, and data of longest period in which it is not in use is discarded.